Junior Year Decisions

On the way home from Bloomington last week I told Cameron that during his junior year he would need to start thinking seriously about life beyond high school, especially colleges that would have majors of interest for him.  I know that he had thought about it a little bit before as several weeks ago he told us that he might actually be interested in attending Butler.  He wasn't sure that a big school was right for him.  He also told us that he didn't see himself in Bloomington.  He didn't want to follow his siblings and wasn't interested in the business school.  That was surprising to Doug and to Parce when he told him while we were touring his new home, but I really wasn't that shocked.  Cameron had always been our science student and was most focused on schools that were big in STEM majors.

Last night Cameron told me that he had done some research on tuition costs, college rankings and top science programs with veterinary programs.  We knew about several - Purdue, Michigan State, Wisconsin and Ohio State - all of which were great choices.  Cameron said instantly that he had absolutely no interest in attending Purdue, but would look more closely at the others.  The next school that he talked about was extremely surprising to us, The University of Florida. 

I had realized that when I visited Gainesville that U of F was a lot nicer school than I had thought it would be.  It actually reminded me a lot of Michigan with all of the nice brick buildings, the big football stadium and emphasis on STEM majors.   The bookstore was filled with different shirts promoting the sciences including the "school of pre-veterinary."  Cameron did a lot more research on the university than I did and found out that it was ranked ninth as a school for veterinarians just one shy of Wisconsin.  I then found out that it was also listed as the 30th best college in the nation just behind Michigan at 26th.  I was surprised by that but not by the fact that IU was ranked 76th.  I had realized years ago that the rest of IU did not come close to the stature of the Kelley School of Business.  

In the end Cameron decided the next few items on his to-do list was to see if he could volunteer at the Goshen veterinarian clinic.  That way he would get an idea of what life as a veterinarian would be like and if it would be something he could see himself doing in the future.  Samuel trained with the vet at the clinic and thought that would be possible.  Cameron also wanted to make an official visit to the University of Florida as well on one of Doug's trips to Ocala.  All in all it sounded like a great plan.  As he and I were cleaning out his room this afternoon, I told him that I secretly wondered if I planted the idea of him becoming a Gator long ago when I painted his room blue and orange.  I guess we will have to wait and see.